The soft footfalls of dusk are closing in again bringing the panic, anxiety and sadness oozing into me. The TV is not providing the droning comfort that I demand and I decide to go to bed. Again, I am alone and lonely. I take another tranquilizer. Oh how I hate those things; numbing me, allowing the panic to step back a few paces, past that grayish fog that represents reality to me. God, I feel so lost. I really don’t have a damn thing to get up for in the morning. My life is over now and I’m asking a question to something, anything that stands for a God. This is not how it was supposed to be. Twenty-nine years old and feeling dead inside. What day is it? I don’t remember anymore. Its February I think. 1984.

Looking back at that cool day in October, 1983, I remember feeling nauseated for about a week and kept thinking it was the flu. For the first time since puberty, I had missed a period, so a trip to the doctor’s for a blood test was in order. Perhaps the flu bug had really laid waste to my immune system. To my utter surprise, the results came in and I was pregnant. Having only one ovary, the chances of a pregnancy were extremely slim, so I wasn’t sure whether I felt shock or elation. My relationship with my husband hadn’t been very good lately. Frustration about money and every other issue was on red alert. The liquor was being stocked in the kitchen cabinet and being consumed again.

On the way home, deciding that perhaps the best thing to do was just tell him straight out and see whether that might mend up the marriage, I sucked in my courage and entered the house. After all, having a child brought couples closer together. I asked him to come into the kitchen because I had some “news”. He looked a little mystified but came into the kitchen anyway and I said “Honey, we are going to have a baby.” A few emotions fleetingly moved over his face and the one that caught my attention the most was the disgust. He said “I don’t want the (swear word) thing.”

My stomach fell into my knees somewhere and the room spun with an incredible speed. I had to catch the end of the table as the dizziness and nausea washed over me. I hadn’t expected that particular reaction. He got up and walked out of the room. I wandered into the bedroom, sat on the bed and cried. So, ok, the marriage was that bad and I was in a very bad situation. Against all my upbringing, my religion and my better judgment, I made an appointment to go into the hospital and I had the “problem” taken care of. I felt worthless and ashamed and kept the sorrow down deep. He remained silent.

Two days after the hospital visit, the phone rang at 6:00 in the morning. My husband took the call and had a drawn look on his face as he handed me the receiver. It was my father in Toronto and he sadly told me that my mother had just died and requested that I come home. My mother was only 66, taken finally with the complications of rheumatoid arthritis of which she had suffered. I hadn’t seen her in two years now. I never would again. I felt incredible guilt but yet I couldn’t cry. I had cried most of the tears in the hospital. I think they call that shock.

That evening, I had a dream wherein my husband was shouting at me. He was standing in front of a girl, trying to protect her and was saying he wanted to leave me, that it was over and he had enough. I woke up screaming and crying and told him my dream. I didn’t have the presence of mind to notice that he was looking at me very strangely. Weeks before that, my Nana had shown up in a dream. She had passed on years before and in this dream she was sitting in a chair facing me, talking to me about life. The realization dawned that I was speaking to someone who was dead, so I blurted out “Nana, you’re dead!”, and with that she rose from the chair and wrapped her old arms around me and said “Yes child, I know.” And I awoke feeling warm, physically embraced and loved. And very weird!

After the funeral, where I finally broke down and cried hard, I phoned back to Edmonton to ask my husband whether he missed me or not. No was his reply. I remember thinking then “Why don’t I just stay here?” But no, I went back. Two weeks later, we were driving in our car along the edge of the river that runs through Edmonton and he pulled over to the side of the road, leaned over and said “Susan, I want a divorce.” The death knell sounded.

I believe that when we are young, we do foolish things and one of the most foolish things I ever did was to marry a man that I never truly loved. The morning of the wedding, with all the activities, I awoke and wanted to run! My insides were bursting with knowing it was wrong and I didn’t listen. Being lonely, being poor and only 24 in a strange city makes one desperate perhaps. That’s how I met my husband. Fooling myself that I could make myself love a person, I entered into a marriage of convenience and a lie and it was very energy-consuming to keep up a lie. The facade broke down and even he knew. He wasn’t to blame for this; I was. Life has a way of letting the truth stare you down in the face. What you give out, you get back – ten-fold. I was reaping what I sowed.

Eventually, I had to leave. The lie of a marriage turned very ugly one night with a scare that many women have faced and now I had too. In a fit of anger, at a very vulnerable moment, a man’s hands wrapped around my neck in a fit of rage and I knew that I was in mortal danger. Applying every bit of calm that wasn’t felt, I had politely stated that he was hurting my throat and would he mind letting go. To my utter surprise, he did. The following morning, I visited a lawyer, packed a large suitcase and went to live with my Buddhist friend. There was a reason I guess, that I didn’t die that night. My friend already knew. Having an intuitive gift, she had already seen my future and was totally prepared to let me live in her living room. I eventually moved in a bed and a small chest of drawers and spent the next three weeks wondering what to do.

I was drugged now. Sleeping pills, anti-depressants and tranquilizers were my constant companions. Obviously I was not coping well, feeling very lonely with no family close by and only one real friend. I missed my Siamese cats the most, especially Maxie, who was the sick one. Months ago, he had been diagnosed with feline leukemia which filled his lungs with fluid wherein once a week we had taken him to the vet’s to extract the fluid via a needle straight through the chest cavity. A week before I left the house, a wonderful movie about a woman who had been in an accident and could not walk was shown on TV. Through the trauma of the accident, latent healing abilities came to the fore and she became a hands-on healer, curing the nosebleed of a small child with just the touch of her hand. Her life unfolded on the screen in many miraculous moments.

While watching this movie, I had looked down at Maxie, who was lying on my lap and I “hurt” inside because I loved this animal so. The woman in the movie said all you have to do is channel white light and love. So I had taken Maxie down into the basement, planting him firmly in front of me, placing my left hand over his abdomen and held my right hand upwards towards the ceiling. All I could hear was his loud purring. And suddenly, I felt something that no longer was just my imagination. I felt power streaming into me, causing an electrical sensation. It increased until I thought I would burst. And it kept coming, at a higher and higher frequency. I felt drunk – with love! I really loved this little pet and love is a very real energy. It fills you up and empties out into everything you touch.

Maxie never moved.

After 10 minutes, I picked him up, went upstairs and never thought about it again. Until I moved in with my friend. My husband kept the cats as he felt it necessary to punish me for my wrongs. One morning, he called regarding a bill and in the conversation I asked about the cats. He said he had taken Maxie into the clinic and the vet was surprised, as his lungs had dried up and his heart was back to normal size. He was in remission. I never said a word although I put two and two together and this was my first experience with healing. And I felt curiously strange. The first veil of logical thinking was rent. My God, it was possible. All those things they talk about. They are real! White light, energy and love. Although I felt wracked with a strange sadness, there was something else peeking out now, a small seed of something they call Hope.

A few evenings later, falling asleep, I heard my name called. It seemed a familiar voice and yet, my friend was sound asleep in her bedroom. I heard it again. Ok, these are the drugs talking, I’m thinking. Then there was strange music and as I kept listening, I heard sweet voices singing and it was so beautiful, tears were welling in my eyes. I was listening to angels and it was the sweetest celestial music I have ever heard. They were singing the Universe into existence and I was part of the music, one note, individual and unique and I fell asleep to the strangely touching sounds.

Weeks later, my friend announced there was an apartment down the hall that was vacant. I’m sure she mentioned this for two reasons, although she enjoyed my company. Grieving must take place privately and on a practical note, she wanted her living room back. I phoned my Dad for a deposit and I moved myself and my meager possessions into the apartment. I called for some furniture and my husband accommodated me with the least expensive; the worst that we had owned. I made no comment, deciding that in the predicament I was in at the moment, beggars cannot be choosers. I bought new tableware with a Zeller’s credit card. I was dirt poor.

A visit to my husband the following week produced a separation agreement that his brother, who was a lawyer by occupation, had decided to draw up for safety. I read it and of course, all the hope of reconciliation was gone. I had come into the old house that night with a single rose and I felt it wilt within what was left of my heart. I went to see another lawyer that evening and he took a look at the agreement. He was tired and we talked on a level of philosophy, not marriage or divorce. He peered over at me and said “you have nothing to lose” and let me go home with it in hand.

Sitting on the bathroom floor for what seemed like hours, I cried. My life was summed up in a separation agreement, awaiting a signature so that two people could be set free of one another. A part of me was in shock and disbelief and another part was so saddened by it all. After the river was staunched, there was a little insistent voice that said “Let it go; let it all go.” I signed the house and everything back and walked out with nothing. A clean slate.

So, weeks later after all the turmoil, I took three days off from a boring word processing job in a bank. My Buddhist friend was away and I was totally and inconsolably alone. I took stock. I had lost the chance for a baby, my mother and now my life up to that point in a matter of weeks. Loss, loss, loss. There was nothing left and so, the evening approached where I didn’t feel like waking up the next morning. I simply wanted to die. And if you want something bad enough…

I laid back in the bed, in the heavy darkness and I sank down. I felt the life force ebbing out of me, slipping away. This was it. I was dying and I was letting go…

There are moments in a person’s life that are key. There are moments that are burned into your memory and leave a searing impact, resonating long after, deep down into your soul. This moment was mine. I felt a Presence come into my consciousness; Powerful, Awesome and so incredibly Loving. Permeating into me, expanding my soul, my heart and my mind, it lifted me up, carried me and loved me beyond measure. I slowly lost consciousness…

Morning broke that next day with a radiant sunrise. The pain and heaviness were gone. Filled with an incredible joy, I bounced around the apartment, singing a few notes and that is when I heard the birds sing. Oh my God, I hadn’t heard the birds sing for months! I looked in the mirror and the grief was no longer showing in my face. This was Grace. Whether by a God, the Universe or Angels, it didn’t matter. I was alive and everything was going to be all right. My fears of being alone were now replaced with an unquenchable thirst for life.

That was 1984. Today is 2005. Twenty-one years have passed since this event. I have never experienced a moment that touched me as deeply or as profoundly. That night I found my Soul. It entered into my body and I cherish the gifts that it brought to my life that night. Life is not always easy and there have been many trials since. But that was the start of the journey, the moment I woke up and I never looked back.

If there are sad and lonely moments in your life, cherish them as they are teaching you to go within and bearing a promise of a grander structure. If there are disappointments and trials, they are steps on a ladder to take you closer to the sky. When you are lost and cannot find the way home, remember that we do have a home. We are Spirit first, inhabiting a body made of earth. It is a temporary home and we need it right now to accomplish our work – whatever the work that we are set out to do. We have a purpose. We have the strength.

We are loved; infinitely, unconditionally. Spread the Word. Keep the Faith.